Publisher Made by Wellcome Trust Film Unit. Written by Dr. Billie Williams and directed by Anthony Palmer.

Digitizing sponsor Wellcome Trust Film Unit

In 1901, an outbreak of sleeping sickness in Uganda rapidly assumed epidemic proportions. In the spring of 1902, the Royal Society sent a small scientific commission to Entebbe to investigate the cause of the disease. This film highlights the many scientific and professional problems which beset the commission's work, dramatically reconstructing the circumstances leading up to Dr. (later Sir) Aldo Castellani's (1877-1971) discovery of trypanosomes in the cerebrospinal fluid of sleeping sickness victims and his difficult 'encounter' with Colonel David Bruce at Entebbe in February 1903. With Ian Harvey as Aldo Castellani and Leon Sinden as David Bruce. 4 segments.